'Extremely concerning from a UK perspective is the
role of Menwith Hill, the NSA spy base in North Yorkshire'. Photo:
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Your reports on the Prism programme (Revealed:
how US secretly collects private data from AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google,
Microsoft, Paltalk, Skype, Yahoo and YouTube, 7 June) reinforce the
evidence of whistleblowers over the last decade that the National
Security Agency, despite official denials, has been massively extending
its capacity to intercept all forms of electronic communications and is
harvesting private data on a systematic basis. Extremely concerning from
the UK perspective is the role of Menwith Hill, the NSA spy base in
North Yorkshire that plays a key role for the US as part of a global
electronic surveillance network.

Menwith Hill has undergone a multibillion-dollar investment programme
to enhance exactly those same capabilities for the interception of
domestic communications and in its role co-ordinating intelligence-led
warfare for special operations forces and remote-control weaponry like
drones. All this is done effectively beyond any form of parliamentary
accountability and is shrouded under the convenient cover of national
security.

The NSA is now enormously powerful and is operating as a de facto
secret state in ways that flout democratic norms and international law,
with serious implications for personal and political freedoms.